Thoughts on life, work, and pursuits

For a lot of us, our feeling about sales stems from a bad experience with a salesperson.

The problem is, most salespeople are selling someone else’s product; they’re not directly invested in the product itself. A car salesman is a good example: he doesn’t design, build, or distribute the cars, he’s just responsible for moving them off the lot. This can lead to the kind of predatory behavior that we dislike about salespeople.

But you’re different.

You’re not selling someone else’s product.

Sales and marketing are very difficult topics for a lot of solo consultants and freelancers (and entrepreneurs generally). So much so that it often kills their business aspirations (or makes their lives far more painful than necessary during the first few years).

It’s important to unlearn the belief that marketing and sales are inherently bad. (They’re not.) Both are tools, necessary ones at that. How you choose to implement them in your own business is entirely up to you. You can create more cynics… or create more value in the marketplace.

How

Be authentic in your communication with said marketplace.

An advantage most solo entrepreneurs and small businesses have over corporate marketing: it’s easier to be “human” because there is less abstraction between the market and the creator. Take advantage of that strength.